By: Phone Min Thant, Staff Writer
On January 15, SFU officially confirmed the discontinuation of its football program in the 2025 Athletics and Recreation Strategy. This decision followed the discontinuation of the program in 2023.
When SFU initially announced the discontinuation of SFU football, the wider university community rallied behind the program and its players. The SFU Football Alumni Society proceeded with legal action and petitions, but their injunction was denied because it “failed to satisfy the legal requirements and did not convince the court that an injunction is appropriate.” An injunction “usually takes the form of an order preventing or restraining a person from performing an act.” Until the recent decision, there was still hope that the program would return as SFU appointed a third-party special advisor “to explore options for the future of football at SFU.”
In an SFU News release, SFU said that while they face an “uncertain financial climate,” this did not “impact the university’s decision on football.” They added that SFU needs “stronger financial prudence across all aspects of the university, including Athletics and Recreation.” They also stated that the discontinuation came after “an extensive report by an independent special advisor reinforced that SFU had no place to play in the National Collegiate Athletics Association.” NCAA Division II, which SFU football was a part of, is the “second highest level of collegiate sports in the US.” SFU also stated that competing in USports “would be costly with the outcome not guaranteed.” USports is “the leader of university sports in Canada” that gives “student-athletes and national championships” visibility.
The Peak spoke with Emmanuel Adegboyega, Simon Fraser Student Society (SFSS) president and former player on the football team. Adegboyega expressed that the official discontinuation “doesn’t come too much of a surprise” compared to the announcement in 2023, but is still “a clarification of where the university stands on the importance of sports to their students.
“People are very concerned about the approach the university took to making this decision. They felt like the university didn’t involve them, didn’t consult, didn’t meet with them,” he said. “The thousands of people that signed those letters a couple of years ago asking the university to bring back the program shows that this program had support from people at SFU and beyond.”
“If the university is able to do this to the largest team that they run [ . . . ] how much easier would [it be for] a smaller team to be taken off the university’s priority?” — Emmanuel Adegboyega, SFSS president
When asked about SFU’s finances, Adegboyega said that “short-term-wise, the university was trying to be prudent” and “not invest in something that costs millions of dollars annually.” Still, he expressed that SFU football brought “culture, community to students, a sense of belonging,” and sponsored opportunities to play on the team. He said these elements are “beyond the expenses that you’ll see on paper.”
The SFSS president said the impact of athletics is not limited to student athletes, and that the once-packed stadiums at SFU’s football games are a testament to this. He said that “in the grand scheme of things, it was not a prudent decision” to discontinue this part of SFU.
Adegboyega added that the end of the football program has had a ripple effect of uncertainty between teams regarding the future of SFU Athletics and Recreation: “If the university is able to do this to the largest team that they run [ . . . ] how much easier would [it be for] a smaller team to be taken off the university’s priority?”
In an interview with CBC News, SFU’s provost and vice-president Dilson Rassier said, “The mission of university is education. It’s not to develop professional athletes in any sport.” Adegboyega said this view on the university experience sees education “as something that happens within the confines of a classroom.
“Education as we know it is not what it used to be,” he said. “A student must be viewed in the most holistic way possible,” in which mental and physical well-being are considered, “and that’s what sports do.”